


Cold Hands, Warm Heart...Wobbly Skates

by leftennant



Series: Road Trip of Champions [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Wintershock - Fandom
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Ice Skating, Romance, Written for the FYWS Winter Wonderland Ball, mentions of Steve/Natasha and Steve/Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 20:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13220967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftennant/pseuds/leftennant
Summary: Just a sweet little fluffy fic where Bucky teaches Darcy how to ice skate.





	Cold Hands, Warm Heart...Wobbly Skates

**Author's Note:**

> So, fair warning, I can't and do not ice skate. (mostly because my family prefers me alive, and I can barely walk without tripping over myself) All skating advice in this fic is strictly from the Google Institute of Winter Sports, and probably dicey at best. Just squint and everything should go swimmingly...or...you know...skatingly. 
> 
> This was written for FuckYeahWintershock's Winter Wonderland Ball event. The lovely and angelic Amidtheflowers gave it a cursory glance, but I tweaked it after, so if there are errors they are mine. I'm not too bothered about them. Nobody's perfect, yeah? 
> 
> xox - Lefty
> 
> XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

“I don’t think I can do this.” Darcy glanced up from the ice below her skates to the smiling blue eyes of Bucky holding onto her mitten clad hands.

“Of course you can,” he scoffed. “Nothing to worry about. I’ve got you, Spot, and I’m not letting go.”

She slid forward, one skate wobbling precariously. “No really. I just think maybe that my calling is to sit on the bench drinking hot chocolate while you do your thing out here. It’s a good calling. A sound calling. One that I excel at.”

“Darcy, you were the one complaining that you were getting a frozen ass sitting over there.”

“A frozen ass is better than a broken one,” she replied.

“Nobody is getting a broken ass. I already told you I wasn’t gonna let go, and I’m not. C’mon, doll, you’re usually braver than this. What gives?”

Darcy sighed. “Would you believe I’m allergic to ice?”

“Thought you were allergic to doing dishes,” he responded dryly.

“That too. I’ve got a lot of allergies. Tons of them. I’m totally a delicate flower and shit.”

“Well then you’re in luck. Steve was a delicate flower too, and I got him out on the ice.”

“I know. I’ve heard the stories. You found a box of old skates on a doorstep…”

“In an alley,” he corrected. “You accusing us of stealing off doorsteps?”

“Right, right. In an alley. They were too big, so you stuffed newspaper in the… Hey. Are we moving?”

“Just a little bit.” She glanced down at the ice slipping away beneath them while Bucky slowly skated backwards, her in tow. “Look up here, at me. Not down at your feet. Got it?”

“Sure. Looking at you...looking at you...looking at… Oh God, why are we moving away from the sides?”

“It’s nothing. Keep going with the story, I want to hear what happens next.”

“Um…”

“We stuffed newspapers in the toes to make them fit,” he prompted. 

“Yeah, that. You stuffed newspapers in the toes to make them fit, and laced them up with twine you got from the greengrocer's down the street.”

“We did. Ugliest skates in all of Brooklyn, but they worked. Bend your knees a little bit and learn forward,” Bucky suggested.

“Bending my knees. Okay, they are bendy. Where were we? Getting Steve out on the ice?”

“You missed the part where we had a hell of a walk to the skating rink, but yeah, I’ll setting for getting Stevie out on the ice.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Fine. You had a hell of a walk getting to the skating rink, and then you laced up the ugliest skates in all of Brooklyn, and got Steve out on the ice, except according to Steve that’s not what happened.”

Bucky’s lips twitched up into a grin. “No. It’s not. That little shit bolted straight out onto the ice like he’d never heard the words broken neck, got about ten feet, and went straight down on his face. By the time I got to him, he was bleeding everywhere from a cut lip.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you, but only if you take a step forward for me. Two steps, actually. Think you can do that? Step, step, glide, got it?”

She tried, stumbling a little at first. Bucky was as good as his word, though. He never let go, and never let her fall. After a few minutes she began catching on to the gliding thing, and started moving with more confidence.

“HAHA! Fuck you, ice! I’m doing it!” 

“You are,” he agreed, beaming at her. “Keep going just like that.”

“So Steve was bleeding, what happened then?”

“I peeled him up by the collar of his coat, and got him back on his feet. He was barely standing when he started pushing me away, talking a big game about how he didn’t need any help, and was doing fine on his own. The whole time blood was running down his chin and getting all over the scarf he was wearing.”

“That sounds about right,” Darcy snorted. “Remember the time he showed up after that whole six-armed robot thing, and was bleeding all over, and refused to go to medical? He kept saying how it was nothing, and he could heal just fine, and Natasha had to practically drag him down there by the ear.”

“The more things change the more they stay the same,” Bucky sighed. “‘Cept back then Steve didn’t heal so well, and his ma had knitted the scarf. I pointed out how she wouldn’t take too kindly to him destroying more of his clothes because we’d found an abandoned pair of skates he shouldn’t have been using in the first place. It was easier to talk sense into him after that.”

“So he let you teach him after that?”

“More or less. I’m gonna let go of one hand, okay?”

She immediately stiffened, fingers clamping down on his. “That seems like a bad idea. What if I start to fall?”

“You won’t.”

“But if I do?” Darcy pressed.

“If you do, which you won’t because I’m right here, squat down and fall to the side. That’ll keep you from getting hurt.”

“Okay. Squat. Fall to the side. Got it.”

“Good. I’m gonna let go. Just one hand, okay? And I’ll be right next to you the whole time.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tight as Bucky let go, and shifted over so he was standing next to her. “This is fine. This is good. I’m definitely not going to die or anything.”

“One sec,” he said, swapping things around so his left arm was around her waist, and his right arm was across his body, hand tightly holding hers again. “There. All good?”

“All good,” Darcy replied. “Back to gliding?”

“Yeah, back to gliding. Then we’re gonna try something else.”

“Is it something you showed Steve?”

“It is. Once I got his ass settled down with threatening to tell his ma what we were up to. Is that where we were?”

“Yep. You were threatening the wrath of Sarah Rogers,” she said, and Bucky chuckled. “Was she really that scary?”

“Nah. But Steve knew he’d catch it if she found out he’d been out ice skating. He’d had a hell of a time that winter already. Sick more than he wasn’t. Plus he’d straight up lied to her when she left for work at the hospital and told her we were gonna stick around my place all day playing checkers. He knew we could explain the busted lip with him taking a fall on his way to my house, but anything worse than that, and he’d be sunk. She was a good mother, loved him to pieces, but didn’t put up with his shit anymore than Peggy Carter did...or Natasha for that matter.”

Darcy laughed. “Or you.”

“You kidding? I put up with far too much of his shit. How do you think we end up fighting off six-armed robots in the first place?” He shook his head ruefully. “If I was smarter, I would tell Steve to stuff it when he starts with those big speeches, and live out my days on a farm upstate like Barton.”

“Do I get to live on that farm too?” she teased.

“Seeing as how you married me, Spot, I think you’re gonna be stuck feeding chickens and learning how to drive a tractor.”

“I’ll have you know that unlike ice skating, I am well versed in driving a tractor. I used to spend summers at my aunt’s farm when I was a kid. They even had cows and sheep.”

“Is that right? Cows _and_ sheep? Here they say marriage lacks mystery, but I learn something new about you every day.” He bent his head and pressed a kiss on her head through her knit cap. 

“What can I say, I’m just full of surprises. Driving a tractor, marrying a guy from my grandmother’s generation...”

“I’m never gonna stop hearing about that, am I?” Bucky interrupted.

“No,” she giggled. “You aren’t….grandpa.”

“Grandpa, huh? It’s a good thing you’re so pretty, otherwise I might just take offense to that and leave you out here on the ice to find your own way home.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh no?” He arched an eyebrow at her. 

“Nope,” she said. “Besides, even if you wanted to, it would probably take your paleolithic legs ten years to get to back to bench to get those skates off, so I’m feeling pretty good about things.”

Bucky shot her a look, slowly moving his arm out from behind her back. Her skates wavered treacherously.

“Don’t you dare,” Darcy gasped.

“Don’t I dare what? Take my paleolithic legs elsewhere?”

“I swear to God, Bucky Barnes, if you so much as move those skates _one inch_ away from me, I will murder both you and the mammoth you rode in on.”

A corner of his mouth tucked up in a smirk. “That so? Me and the mammoth? That’s pretty harsh considering the mammoth had nothing to do with it.”

“Consider him collateral damage,” she hissed.

“He’s only collateral damage if you can catch us,” Bucky retorted, snatching his hand out of hers and taking off for the side of the rink where the benches were.

Darcy took a step forward, tottering into something that was not exactly a glide, but not exactly falling to her death either. Then she took another, less totter, more glide, still scary. Bucky was leaning on the rail watching, one skate crossed over the other.

“Just wait,” she shrieked at him. “When I get over there you are gonna be toast!”

“Oh I’m shaking. Really.” 

“SO MUCH MURDER IS GOING TO HAPPEN! SO MUCH!”

“I don’t doubt it. Hey, while we’re on the subject, is this murder going to be happening anytime soon, Spot, or should I send in the Rega to airlift you out?” Bucky tilted his head, watching her shaky approach. “On second thought, maybe I oughtta send a couple of snails in sweaters with a stretcher.”

She glared. “Come over here and say that.”

Darcy wasn’t expecting Bucky to listen, and she certainly wasn’t expecting him to shove off the rail and head her way at a breakneck speed. She should have been expecting it, though. He came whizzing towards her, head down and arms swinging like a speed skater. Just as she was wondering if maybe she should’ve gotten out of his way, he was there, skidding her backwards with his hands wrapped around her upper arms.

“How very fucking dare you!” she began, and then was cut off by his mouth landing on hers.

As far as kisses went, this was one of their better ones, despite happening on tiny metal blades that were rushing over the ice. Bucky’s lips were chilly from cold, his nose even chillier where it bumped hers. Not his tongue, _that_ was definitely hot. Every insult she’d been planning to call him died a quick death as she leaned eagerly into the kiss.

It ended sooner than Darcy would have liked. Probably because at least one of them needed to see where they were going. Since he was the one steering them, Bucky must have figured it should be him. He rubbed the tip of his nose over hers once more, Darcy noticed it was _quite_ a bit warmer now thankyouverymuch, and straightened up. 

Alright, you ready to move past just gliding?” he asked.

“Only if you promise to do more of that later, and tell me the rest of the story,” Darcy replied.

“Deal,” Bucky said. He slowed them to a stop, and then switched back into their previous position with his arm around her back, and his other hand in hers. “So, what I want you to do is step one foot a time, gliding for longer. You gotta push off a little, and point your toes out. That make sense?”

“Longer gliding, point your toes out, push off. Like this?” She tried it with him skating along beside until he seemed sure that she had it.

“Just like that. Okay, we’re gonna go together now, starting with the right foot on three. One, two, three…”

They both pushed off, Darcy slightly wobbly but quickly getting her balance under control. It helped that his arm was still firmly wrapped around her back. 

“Look at that, I’m not eating ice, or dead, or anything,” she said delightedly as they moved in a gentle circle around the perimeter of the rink. 

“Nope. You’re a regular Sonja Henie. Steve wasn’t. I practically had to carry him until he got the hang of it.”

“But he did?”

“After a while. Once he got it down, he was cocky as fuck too. Jumping over mittens left on the ice, and skating backwards...shit like that. We stayed at the rink until our fingers were just about frozen off, and we didn’t even know if we had toes left inside those old skates. Then we headed home.”

By this point Darcy was starting to feel a little bit cocky herself. They’d made a second circuit of the rink, this time picking up some speed. It was an easy rhythm to settle into. She even relaxed enough to wave to Wanda, who was cutting figure eights graceful as a swan at the other end of the ice.

“You know,” she said, as their gliding synced and the wind blew strands of hair back from her face, “we’re pretty good together.”

He turned to look at her, smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Yes we are, doll. Yes we are. One more time around?”

“Are you kidding me, Bucky?” she said. “I could do this all day.”

His groan was enough to make her laugh as she set the pace around the rink again.


End file.
